Briefing: Television

The Belgian television market has been revolutionized by the arrival of VTM in February 1989. The commercial channel has secured a 40% share of the Flemish-speaking market with a heady diet of gameshows and feature films, while Flemish pubcaster BRT’s share has declined from 50% to 25%. In the French-speaking community, commercial service RTL-TVI is the leader with a 28% share of the market, comfortably ahead of state-supported RTBF.

In the pay-tv arena, the leader is Canal Plus Belgique, established in September 1989 and now estimated to have some 30,000 subscribers. Its only competitor is FilmNet, which failed to reach its target price of around $500 million when put on the market in January 1990.